Alice Walker's Beauty: When The Other Dancer Is The Self

Alice Walkers Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self speaks about how ones perception of beauty affects ones self worth. From childhood we see that Walker was praised for both her beauty and intelligence leading her to become self absorbed and snobbish. At this point I found her to be a annoying child and when she refers to her siblings who were unable to go to the fair due to the lack of room in the car as the "unlucky ones" it seems though she thinks she is better than them. Though as she grows she gains respect for her older sister and brothers. At the age of ten Walker was shot in the eye by her brother while he was playing with a be-be gun leaving her eye blind and deformed. Overwhelmed by shame and self loathing as a result of her injury she

As of recently, the media has been flooded with positive interpretations of beauty standards all over the world. According to various sources, beauty ideals, in women especially, are socially constructed in order to judge a person’s value based on physical attractiveness; therefore, it is highly encouraged that people pay attention to their looks and take care of themselves, in order for others to create a positive first impression of one’s character. It is no secret that beauty standards vary from one culture to the next and it is difficult to establish a universal principle of what is considered beautiful. Many countries’ ideals contrast one another and, as a result, allow for stereotypes to emerge. This is the case between American

The societal expectations for beauty are an ingrained concept amongst the minds of almost every individual, who in turn project these standards on each other and their own children. Throughout her adolescence, Walker seeks for validation of her beauty through others. “When I rise to give my speech I do so on a great wave of love and pride and expectation.” (Walker 2). Walker was seeking a reaction from her audience as she read her Easter speech to her church; a reaction of approval and admiration, which then confirmed her “cuteness”. The emotional toil brought upon by the accident caused Walker to go into a dark place of unacceptance of herself. She did poorly in school, was bullied in school, and kept her head down for several years of her life because of the shame she felt from the appearance of her eye. “I tell it I hate and despise it. I do not pray for sight. I pray for beauty.” (Walker 5). At twelve years-old, Walker talks about the eye that has gone blind and development of her self-unacceptance can be seen here. The lack of concern she had about the function of her eye, but rather the aesthetics, shows how dependent Walker was on in achieving societal standards.

The short story/essay “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self” written by Alice Walker demonstrates the story of Alice accepting herself despite her flaws. As a child, Alice is a pretty, outgoing, and messy girl; but that all changes in a matter of seconds. Alice loses sight in one of her eyes, changing her perspective on life for a majority of her life. She went from the outgoing girl whom everybody seems to love, to the girl that doesn’t look up anymore in fear people will see her messed up eye. Growing up in 1947 with her family, she is not a rich child, in fact, almost dirt poor, so her parents can’t afford a car to take her to the hospital, contributing to her losing sight in her eye. Although she tells her parents a reason causing her to injure her eye, it is a lie, so that she is able to protect her siblings from becoming in trouble. Alice Walker demonstrates a theme of lying to protect siblings in her life which I can relate to because I oftenly as a child had to lie to protect my siblings as well.

In Alice Walker's "Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self”, her view of beauty changes through different stages of her life. In her childhood Walker has a misunderstanding of beauty. She is concerned with superficial signs of beauty and fails to appreciate her inner beauty. A tragic mishap as a young child leaves her right eye blind and deformed. She enters a period of depression her life, living her life in shame and disappointment because she believes her beauty to be lost. Even getting surgery as an adult doesn’t help defeat her demons. She continues to struggle until she finds her inner beauty through her daughter’s love. As a child, Alice Walker got her definition of beauty from her family, in her teens she turned to her peers to define beauty, her perception finally changed again in adulthood when she discovered an inner beauty.

In the essay, “Beauty: When the Other Dance is the Self “, Alice Walker describes how her identity is affected when a traumatic accident occurs that mangled her eye and took her eye sight. One been confidence in her looks she felt exalted by those around her. After her accident occurred she struggled with accepting her new appearance and the consequences that came along with it. Walker became insecure which cause she to feel disregarded, and misunderstood. After years of pain, she got her “glob” removed which helped her gain her self-confidence but still felt overlooked and unnoticed by the people around her. Walker’s journey is proof that accidents can cause changes that you must accept. Although she felt overlooked by adults in her life, she finally embraced her scar, “imperfection”, when a child saw the real beauty in her eye.

If you ask twenty people to define beauty you will receive, in all probability, twenty different definitions. Beauty, being as ambiguous as it is, leaves room for interpretation. Alice Walker, in “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self”, attempts to demonstrate that perception is subjective, and she successfully does so. Albeit, our perceptions do change as we go through life, experiencing and learning. By taking the reader on a sequential journey throughout her life and establishing a sentimental and sympathetic tone, Walker is able to portray that accepting and loving yourself is greater than being considered “beautiful” by society.

A feather landed in a splatter of yellow paint on the dusty concrete, and was trampled by the passersby as they hurried past in their haste to get to the highlight of the fair: the prized bird judging. Ellie sat in a corner perched on the edge of her stool, cheered by the queue of people waiting for her to paint their portrait. As an Art student, she used the money she earned from selling her paintings at the local markets and fairs to pay her tuition fees, her rent and feed herself.

A form of adversity is in Alice Walker’s essay, “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self”, it shows how a person’s perception of everything is always greatly influenced by their past experiences. Walker uses various elements throughout her writing to show her outlook towards her appearance. Walker uses the incident that happened in her childhood to show that a persons mindset can be changed by a experience and how her attitudes changes from a sassy, conceited kid to a matured and powerful women who finally sees beauty in her life. Alice Walker’s essay is a great example of a person whose fear of adversity allowed themselves to be worn down by it. She begins the story with a cocky outlook on life where she knows she is beautiful. “I’m the prettiest!” (Alice Walker), as a young child she would use her

There a multiple things that can make an effective narrative essay, this can include interesting and consistent dialogue, attention to details, particularly sensory details, and the story in which the author decided to write about. These are all things that help Alice Walker’s Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self become an effective narrative essay. As with anything though, there are things that could have been improved such as the amount of things she attempted to talk about and how long it took to explain the point of the paper.

What would you do if you suddenly become blind in one eye? Would you still act like yourself? Or would you become self-conscious of your imperfection? This situation occurred in Alice Walker’s life. She wrote the short story “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self” to describe events that impacted her life. Walker first illustrates her personality when she was younger; she was a cheerful, outgoing girl who wanted to be “the prettiest” in town. However, when Walker’s brother shoots a pellet at her, she goes blind and a scar forms over her eye. She becomes self-conscious of her appearance and changes into a different person. Her personality goes from being social and friendly to being depressed and reserved. This is more than

Beauty standards are portrayed everywhere: on magazines, social media, ads, commercials, and even flaunted among peers. While the ideals are supposed to promote health awareness, fitness motivation, and self love, it unfortunately results in many unfavorable consequences. Women are constantly “penalized for not being beautiful and at the same time are stigmatized, even pathologized, for not feeling beautiful, for having low self-esteem, for engaging in behaviors like dieting and excessive exercising, or for having eating disorders” (Johnston and Taylor 954). Beauty standards are unrealistic and unhealthy to pursue, and misinforms the public on what true beauty is. While not all beauty image ideals promote negative feelings and dissatisfaction, many believe that the negative effects far outweighs any positive effects.

If so many people are claiming that looks do not matter and beauty only runs skin-deep, then why does the

We are constantly told that looks don't mater, but if they don't matter why does the media always use photo shop to portray an unrealistic body image. because our society contradicts the saying that personality should over rank beauty so many young people especially females are harming theirs selves just to met this standard of perfection which quite frankly isn't real. Why are we so unhappy with the way we look even though we know that all those models in the magazines aren't exactly real. The unrealistic standard of beauty that women are bombarded with everyday goals that is impossible to reach, and the effects are devastating. These impossible standards need to be stopped, and society instead needs to promote a healthy body image along with the idea that women of all shapes and sizes are beautifulPerfection is always one step ahead of us, we will never make ourselves clones of those beautiful models and even if we diet and try so hard to be like them, there will aways be something better there will always be something that could be better, We will never be flawless.

It 's not a mystery that society 's ideals of beauty have a drastic and frightening effect on women. Popular culture frequently tells society, what is supposed to recognize and accept as beauty, and even though beauty is a concept that differs on all cultures and modifies over time, society continues to set great importance on what beautiful means and the significance of achieving it; consequently, most women aspire to achieve beauty, occasionally without measuring the consequences on their emotional or physical being. Unrealistic beauty standards are causing tremendous damage to society, a growing crisis where popular culture conveys the message that external beauty is the most significant characteristic women can have. The approval of prototypes where women are presented as a beautiful object or the winner of a beauty contest by evaluating mostly their physical attractiveness creates a faulty society, causing numerous negative effects; however, some of the most apparent consequences young and adult women encounter by beauty standards, can manifest as body dissatisfaction, eating disorders that put women’s life in danger, professional disadvantage, and economic difficulty.